F is for . . .

. . . float. We found letters and created words using floating bottle caps. 

The kids would pick a letter or word from the laminated word stips. Then they would fish out the bottle caps with the correct letters on them. 

This is an engaging and easy activity to do any time. You just need plastic bottle caps (like from juice containers, milk gallons, or gatorade bottles), water, and a slotted spoon. I just used a sharpie to write the letters on the inside of the cap. Sometimes they start to fade and I just rewrite them when that happens.  . . . fly. The kids practiced identifying letters with our fly swat game. I would call out a letter and they would swat it with the fly swatter. Want to play your own fly swat game? Download our alphabet of flies here.

. . . fall. We read the book, Let It Fall. After we used tissue paper to make our own fall trees. 

D is for

. . . dump! The kids filled a bucket choosing only items that started with the letter d and when it was full, they got to dump it out. For a more detailed post on how to create your own dumping activity, see the post here.

. . . dotted diamonds! We used bingo markers to make dots on a diamond. I have seen the bingo markers in the pen or kids craft section of the dollar store.  We read the book Lots of Dots by Craig Fraizer. It shows how dots can be used to make fun pictures. . . . dinosaur feet! We used cracker boxes to create dinosaur feet. I spray painted each one green. The kids painted them and added claws using double sided tape that I put on th edge of each box. 

Then we had a lot of fun stomping around the classroom and being dinosaurs. (This is a picture I took of Brandon later in the day for our family blog. The pictures I took during class were too blurry to use.)

We even sang "We are the Dinosaurs" by the Laurie Berkner band.

B is for . . .

. . . block towers. The kids picked a numbered card, identified the number and then built a tower that tall. 

. . . balancing. We practiced balancing on a beam while picking up letter Bs.

. . . bee balancer. We made balancing bees. Each bee was made from a file folder with two pennies attached to the wings. The kids added stripes and a face to their bee and then practiced balancing it across the balance beam.

A is for . . .

. . . apple picking

We used our fine motor skills to pick apples off a tree with tongs. The kids rolled a dice and then picked that many apples off the tree and put them in their bucket. For this activity we used a 6 sided dice and practiced counting the pips (dots) on the side of the dice we rolled. Then we picked that many apples off the tree until our tree was bare. This center was meant to work on the one to one principle when counting. i.e. we count one time for each (one) thing we see.  

I love Makaius's concentration face! :)

For the next apple picking activity we used a 12 sided dice. There were numbered apples on the tree. The kids identified which number they rolled then picked the corresponding apple off the tree. For this activity we were working on identifying numbers. 

 
 . . . ants on a log

Celery, peanut butter and raisins. You can't get more classic than this snack!

. . .  ants

We made thumbprint ants on a letter a. Each child made sure the ants had 3 body parts, 6 legs, 2 antenna, and a face. 

 . . . apples (again.) :)

We did an activity with 10 apples up on top. We did the project seen here, but added an element of complexity. I wrote the numbers using dots instead of writing them completely. The kids connected the dots and traced each number from 1 - 10. Then the kids put the apples in numerical order onto their headband and glued them on. We were working again on number recognition. 

Shapes

Every class that I have taught is different and has their own personalities. This class cracks me up because I cannot get them to look at the camera for the life of me. I try to be as quick as I can when taking pictures of the students during center time or class so I don't disrupt the class time. So sometimes we don't get the best shot and sometimes I can't get them to look at the camera, but we just move on. So I thought I'd throw that disclaimer out there because this class is the "looking dramatically into the distance" picture taking class. Maybe they all have great modeling careers ahead of them. :) Pipe cleaners and straws make an amazing opportunity for kids to be creative and learn about shapes or letters. We worked on making shapes and identifying them during centers time. For more instructions see this post here.

Every year we read this amazing book called Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert. We use her inspiration of making animal faces using simple shapes to create our own animal faces. Each child is given a picture of their favorite animal and we decide together what shapes should make the different features of the face. I provide them with precut shapes and they assemble the faces. I must say that this year is definitely our best batch of animal faces yet! We got to make some really fun faces like rhinos, giraffes, and elephants. Check our your child's amazing creations, you are about to be blown away!

Sink or Float Center

Here's a great activity that's as simple as it comes. Do the items sink or float? Before the kids were allowed to touch water, we made predictions and sorted the items between what they thought would sink or float. 

After testing everything, we discussed our predictions. 

To create a little bit of flare we added a writing component to the activity. The kids drew pictures or wrote letters or words to represent the items that sunk and floated. Do you see that cute little "roc?" I was so proud of the kids for trying letters and sounds to create words. And that adorable little two legged dog is pretty fun too. 

Click here for a free printable of our sink/float chart to use with your little ones. 

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